Career

Named a brigadier general, 1978; became defense minister, 1979; became
information and culture minister, 1981; ran unsuccessfully for president,
1991; appointed army chief, 1996; fired and left the country, 2001;
unsuccessfully attacked Central African capital, Bangui, 2002; overthrew
president and took control of the country, 2003; called elections and
announced he would run for the presidency, 2004; won presidential
election, 2005.

Sidelights

Francois Bozize, president of the Central African Republic starting in
2003, rose to prominence early. Appointed a general at age 32, he served
in two governments in the late 1970s and early 1980s before going into
exile after a failed coup. Imprisoned and tortured under a military
dictatorship, he was released and rejoined his country's politics
after its return to civilian rule in 1991 and became chief of the Central
African armed forces in 1996. During an economic crisis, he organized a
revolt against the country's president, and took over in a coup in
2003. He proved to be more popular than

the predecessor he removed; he called presidential elections, which he
won in 2005. A profile of Bozize by Lucy Jones of BBC News described him
as a "short, pot-bellied general" who was "widely
respected for being a simple man" who "could often be seen
chugging around Bangui in a batteredcar waving to people he knew."

Bozize was born in Gabon, a country southwest of the Central African
Republic (CAR), where his father was a policeman. His family was from the
Bossangoa region in the northwest corner of the CAR. He went to school for
military officers in Bouar, distinguished himself early, and became a
captain before he turned 30. The CAR's dictator, Jean-Bedel
Bokassa, named him a brigadier general in 1978.

When ex-president David Dacko overthrew Bokassa in 1979, he named Bozize
defense minister. The next president, Andre Kolingba, who overthrew Dacko
in 1981, made Bozize the information and culture minister as part of his
effort to have several ethnic groups represented in the government.
However, Bozize left the country in 1982 after Ange-Felix Patasse
attempted to overthrow Kolingba. Bozize announced the news of the coup
attempt in a radio broadcast so confusing it was not clear which side
he was on. While living in exile in various African countries, Bozize
developed a friendship with Patasse, who later became president. Bozize
was accused of being part of the coup attempt, was arrested in Benin and
extradited to the CAR in 1989, and was tortured while in prison, but a
court acquitted him in 1991. When Kolingba's dictatorship ended,
Bozize ran for president, but lost to Patasse. Still, Patasse named him
chief of the army in 1996, and Bozize helped defend the government against
mutinies by unpaid soldiers in 1996 and 1997. Patasse was reelected in
1999.

In May of 2001, Patasse survived a coup attempt. Some suspected Bozize of
being involved in it. A commission formed to investigate the rebellion
summoned him to answer questions, but he would not. He was fired in
October, but when government troops tried to arrest him in November, five
days of violence broke out. Bozize fled to Chad, north of the CAR, with
about 300 people loyal to him. In October of 2002, Bozize's forces
attacked the CAR's capital, Bangui, but Patasse's forces
pushed them back into the northern part of the country with the help of
troops from Libya (which Patasse had promised a monopoly on extracting
diamonds from the CAR) and a Congolese rebel force.

By the time Bozize pushed toward the capital city of Bangui again in March
of 2003, at a time when Patasse was out of the country at a summit in
Niger, the CAR was in an economic crisis that had made the president very
unpopular. The government had been unable to pay the army or civil workers
for months. The Congolese rebels that had helped Patasse keep power had
raped women and stolen from people across the country. When
Bozize's forces, which only numbered about 1, 000, reached the
capital on March 15, they met little resistance, and some CAR residents
danced in the streets. However, members of Bozize's forces and
allied troops from Chad were also accused of rape and looting on a smaller
scale. Patasse attempted to fly back to Bangui, but his plane was shot at
when it tried to land, so he went into exile in Togo.

When Bozize took power, he declared that he would restore democracy and
not run for president in the next election. "I came to save my
people. My mission ends here, " he said, as quoted by IRIN, a news
service run by the United Nations. The Bozize government created a
national human rights commission, though some members of the military
resisted its work by preventing it from talking to prisoners. A one-month
national dialogue in September of 2003 resulted in a call for a
constitution that split power between the president and a prime minister,
as well as apologies from former leaders such as Kolingba and members of
Patasse's party for past mistakes and violence. In November of
2004, the government passed a new law ensuring freedom of the press,
abolishing prison terms for libel and slander. Since then, newspapers in
the CAR have criticized the government, but the country's radio and
TV stations are state-owned and do not often cover the opposition, except
for one station sponsored by the United Nations.

Bozize set up an electoral commission to oversee the transition back to
democracy. Voters ratified a new constitution in December of 2004, and
Bozize set up elections for March and May of 2005. Despite his earlier
pledge, Bozize announced he would run in the presidential election.
"In my capacity as a soldier, I'm serving my people,
" he announced at a political rally in Bangui in December,
according to IRIN. "When I'm called I have no choice but to
obey."

In May of 2005, Bozize won the presidency with 64 percent of the vote in
the second round, beating former prime minister Martin Ziguele. His
supporters won 42 out of 105 seats in the legislature. Foreign observers
pronounced the elections fair, though the British magazine the
Economist
disagreed, saying there had been intimidation and ballot-stuffing.

As 2005 drew to a close and the country's years-long financial
crisis dragged on, pressure on Bozize mounted. Corruption, rampant under
Patasse, was reportedly still a serious problem, and the country was close
to broke. Civil servants, still waiting for back pay, went on strike in
October, and in December, riot police surrounded a union headquarters to
stop workers from holding a rally. That month, Bozize asked the
legislature for the power to rule by decree for nine months, saying it
would help him deal with the financial crisis and make reforms urged by
international lenders (which had been slow to send new aid to the
country). Although human rights groups protested the move, the legislature
granted him the power at the end of December. He used it in early January
of 2006 to increase the price of paraffin, which is widely used as a fuel
in the CAR.

Bozize faced other problems as 2006 began. The African Union warned that
armed groups in the north of the country, possibly including soldiers
loyal to Patasse, might be preparing for an offensive. Also, in February
of 2006, Bozize's son, Francois Bozize Jr., was sentenced to four
months in jail in France for defrauding a bank.